Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, November 9, 1871

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 9 November 1871


First published in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. PhiL Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Printed according to the original
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

[London,] 9 November 1871

Dear Friend,

I sent you 100 copies of the Conference resolutions[1] the day before yesterday, 50 in ENGLISH and 50 in FRENCH.

This week 1,000 copies of the ENGLISH REVISED AND OFFICIAL STATUTES AND REGULATIONS[2] will be sent to you. T r y to sell them.

T h e GENERAL COUNCIL has large expenditures to make as a result of the various tasks it was set by the Conference.

We shall have an official French edition of the REVISED STATUTES, etc., printed in Geneva, and the official German edition printed in Leipzig. Write and tell us approximately how many COPIES of each will be required in the UNITED STATES.

A section of the International, Section française de 1871 (about 24 strong), has been formed here among the FRENCH REFUGEES, which immediately clashed with the GENERAL COUNCIL because we demanded changes in its Rules.[3] It will probably result in a SPLIT. These people are working together with some of the French refugees in Switzerland, who in turn are intriguing with the men of the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste (Bakunin), which we dissolved. T h e object of their attack is not the governments a n d ruling classes of Europe, allied against us, but the General Council of London, a n d particularly my humble self. This is their gratitude for my having spent nearly 5 months working for the refugees and having acted as their vindicator through the Address on the Civil War.[4]

I defended them even at the Conference, where the delegates from Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, and Holland expressed their misgivings lest the General Council endanger its international character through too large an admixture of French refugees.[5]

But in the eyes of these 'Internationalists' it is in itself a sin for 'German' influence (because of German science) to predominate in the GENERAL COUNCIL.

As for the New York CENTRAL COMMITTEE,[6] the following:

1. According to the Conference decisions, see II, 1, in the future, it must call itself FEDERAL COUNCIL OR FEDERAL COMMITTEE OF THE UNITED STATES.

2. As soon as a much larger n u m b e r of BRANCHES has been established in the DIFFERENT STATES, the most practical thing to do will be to call a congress of the different SECTIONS—following the example of Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain—to elect a FEDERAL COUNCIL OR COMMITTEE in New York.

3. FEDERAL COMMITTEES can in turn be established in the different States—as soon as they have a sufficient number of BRANCHES—for which the New York COMMITTEE will function as the central point.

4. T h e definitive special Rules, both of the New York FEDERAL COMMITTEE and of the COMMITTEES yet to be established, must be submitted to the GENERAL COUNCIL for sanction before their publication.[7]

We are making rapid progress in Italy. A great triumph over the Mazzini party. T h e progress in Spain is also considerable. A new section has been established in Copenhagen, which already has 1,500 MEMBERS and publishes its own paper, Socialisten. T h e Brunswick court's indictment of the local EX-COMMITTEE, Bracke and comrades, has been transmitted to m e — a n infamous document.

All of us regret that you intend to resign from the Committee. I trust, however, that your decision is not final. I myself often think of doing the same, as the affairs of the International take too much of my time a n d interrupt my theoretical work.

Apropos. I should like to have 12 copies of Woodhull's etc. Weekly of 21 October, containing my daughter's story.[8] Only by ACCIDENT did we see a COPY of this issue.

Salut fraternel,

Karl Marx

  1. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Resolutions of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association Assembled at London from 17th to 23rd September 1871'.
  2. ↑ K. Marx, General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men's Association.
  3. ↑ The reference is to a group of French refugees, participants in the Paris Commune, who allied themselves with the Bakuninists in Switzerland (Aristide Claris, Benoît Malon, Jules Guesde, André Léo, and others). On 6 September 1871 they set up a section of propaganda and revolutionary socialist action together with members of the Geneva Section of the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste (Nikolai Zhukovsky, Charles Perron) which had dissolved on the eve of the London Conference. The General Council, proceeding from the London Conference decisions prohibiting the admission of sectarian groups, refused to admit the section. This was confirmed by the Hague Congress in September 1872.
  4. ↑ K. Marx, The Civil War in France.
  5. ↑ At the morning sitting on 22 September 1871 the London Conference discussed the Belgian delegates' proposal, tabled by De Paepe, to limit the number of representatives from each nationality in the General Council. Marx opposed De Paepe. The Conference confirmed as members of the General Council all the previously admitted Communards.
  6. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953.
  7. ↑ After the 1871 London Conference, the Rules of the International's local organisations were subject to approval by the General Council. They were first discussed by the Council's committee which had been appointed on 6 October 1871 to prepare a new edition of the General Rules and Administrative Regulations, and included Marx, Jung and Serraillier.
  8. ↑ J. Marx, 'To the Editor of Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly.'